The cavern's heat pressed on their faces like a hand. Ember light painted everyone in honest colors: soot on Lyria's cheek, sweat on Garron's metal graft, the fox-gray sheen of Maera's fur. The Ember Wraith towered above them, a living column of flame and memory. It did not rush. It never rushed. Power that is certain keeps its own measure of time.
Aeron stood in the center of the Cradle of Ash. The molten light that now threaded his veins made him glow faintly, like a lantern seen through smoke. He looked small. Not because he was short, but because the place wanted to make any living thing feel small.
The Wraith's voice rolled again, low as tectonic grinding.
"Prove you understand fire's law. Or be consumed by consequences."
Lyria stepped forward. "What does the test demand?"
The Wraith's ember-eyes narrowed. "You must choose a memory and let it be judged. If your flame answers true, you pass. If false, the flame takes that which you pretend to have loved."
Maera made a face. "Riddles. Great. I hate riddles that have teeth."
Soryn's voice was sober. "It is a test of essence. The Wraith does not ask trivia. It measures whether the bearer can hold what they love without burning what remains."
Aeron's hands trembled. He had, until now, assumed the mark was merely a leash. The test reframed it: a mirror. If the Sovereign's power could ask for memory, then using him as a key could cost him what he most needed.
Garron's jaw tightened. "A test for the boy. While the rest of us sit and watch."
"You underestimate ritual," Kethra said. "Ritual cuts more than muscle. It cuts reason."
The Wraith drifted closer. Its heat did not scorch, but its presence leeched the falsehood from breath. Aeron felt the memory it wanted unspool in his chest: his hand in his mother's, the hush of a storm as she braided his hair the night before the slave-raiders came. He had not thought about that night in years. He had protected it like a locked thing.
Aeron swallowed. "I—" He stopped, chest tightening. The memory brightened, then the Wraith's ember-tongue touched it, testing edges. False pieces—small lies his fear had added—crackled and burned away. The Wraith's light judged the truth of his devotion. He felt vulnerable the way you feel when someone reads a letter not addressed to you.
Lyria watched him closely. She had faced trials of speed and balance; this was the kind of test that cut cleaner than a blade because it left a mark inside a person. Garron shifted on his feet, fists unconsciously closing.
When the memory snapped whole and true, the Wraith's heat softened. "You keep what you have loved," it said. "But know this: love is a fuel and a threat. The Sovereign's hunger will come for both."
Aeron staggered back, relief and a new fear mingling into a cold well. The Wraith receded, but did not vanish. Instead it gave a single warning:
"Go forth. Remember the law: what empowers you can also take."
They left the Cradle with the molten lake's glow in their minds. None of them spoke for a long while. The test did not feel like victory. It felt like entry into a ledger: a debt had been acknowledged.
Outside, the air tasted like rain. Riko said the first thing anyone dared: "So when can we eat?"
Maera groaned with theatrical hunger. "You may be small, Riko, but you have admirable priorities."
Garron broke their half-smile. "We move. The Ember Crypt's map must be found. The Sovereign gathers pieces. If he collects enough, the city will have less than ash to remember."
Soryn nodded. "We head to the lower archives. There may be records of former Ashborn — a pattern to his waking."
Kethra shouldered her worn pack. "And if the pattern shows we're already late?"
Lyria's eyes looked like tempered steel. "Then we make new patterns."